October 5, 2020 thought for the day: Never judge things of which you only know the shadow. Japanese Proverb

It’s been an eventful day. Sue had an appointment at the new Mt. Carmel Hospital in Grove City. It was one of those appointments that are now common these days where only the patient is allowed in. I waited in the car. I expected it to take quite a while. It didn’t take as long as I expected. I had taken a whole bag of crocheting to do along with my fully charged ipad. I didn’t get much crocheting done. Instead I spent the time trying to untangle a skein of yarn. 

Yesterday’s photo theme was “afternoon light”. As I was in waiting for a traffic light coming out of the shopping center, I caught a glimpse of the highlights on a plant across the street. I thought that would be a good fit for the theme. 

I had planned to stop to see two of my great grandchildren and my granddaughter who live near the hospital we had just left. But it turned out to be not a good time. My granddaughter said they weren’t home but could be there in ten minutes. I didn’t want to interrupt her plans so I said we would reschedule. 

So I decided to stop and see my other great grandson. As usual that was a beautiful stop. He is always a pleasure to see. He is walking now. It doesn’t take long for their lives to develop and move on. 

I am not going to get anything productive done. The only thing I have accomplished in the line of “productivity” is to answer some email requests. 

I think I mentioned in an earlier blog that my computer needs replaced. Well, it still does, need replaced. I am not looking forward to resetting all of my software and the particular things I expect of them. It will take some time and patience. Soon it, the computer, will give up and force me to go on the search for a new one. I seem to have lost two of my most used filters in Photoshop. I realized that as I started to work on the photo of the day entry. 

The photo theme for today is “parents”. Mine have been in their forever home for a long time. So I went through my archives looking for old photos that I have scanned into the computer over the years. This one must have been taken somewhere around early 1944. The taller of the children is me (I can’t say I am the “taller” very often, as a matter of fact, very rarely). The other is my sister and my only sibling. 

The word is neighbors.  As nature made every man with a nose and eyes of his own, she gave him a character of his own, too; and yet we, O foolish race! must try our very best to ape some one or two of our neighbors, whose ideas fit us no more than their breeches! William Makepeace Thackeray. Good is no hermit. It has ever neighbors, Confucius. Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man, Benjamin Franklin. What do I owe to my times, to my country, to my neighbors, to my friends? Such are the questions which a virtuous man ought often to ask himself,  Johann Kaspar Lavater. When God wants to speak and deal with us, he does not avail himself of an angel but of parents, or the pastor, or of our neighbor, Martin Luther. The only constant is change. Unless you get a small group of neighbors together to stop it, Heraclitus. See to whom Jesus is drawing near, three kinds of people: to those who make peace with him, to those who are devoted to God, and to those who are kind to their neighbors, Thomas Aquinas.  

This is another of those days for a second photo of the day. That theme is “airplanes, trains, and automobiles”. I’m not often around airplanes though there are a few in the archives just not enough time to locate one of them. I also have a couple of trains. I didn’t remember until late in the day that I had this “assignment” so I pulled the nearest image that I could fine. You may recognize it as one I used earlier in my blogs for another photo of the day.  

This might be a bit on the down sign of a story but it may give us an idea of some of the bumps kids are having in this pandemic. There seems to be concern about online schooling as it may lead to domestic violence in homeless shelters. When computers didn’t seem to work the way they were envisioned to the students and/or parents became stressed, partly because they didn’t know how to use it properly. Zoom and other technological properties are stumbling blocks. These problems are especially difficult for homeless families who live in shelters who have tried to set up. The shelters are reported to be “designed to provide housing and healing” for people in need. The first day of the online learning at one of the shelter’s there were forty school aged children logged on and the wifi “balked”. The shelter is trying to add bandwidth and has hired an “education assistant”. Handling this problem puts a strain on the shelter in “helping people rebuild their lives”. For the parents of the families living in the shelters and trying to help with the online learning, it is an added worry along with not having a job or time to go out and look for one. One staff member at the shelter mentioned that it has never been a “daycare” center. Older kids have gone to school. Parents of younger kids have found a day care program so the parents could look for work. Now the shelters are trying to consider some way to offer child care services since the districts are not providing in-person tutoring. Another factor of the homeless children having to learn in shelters is that the miss out on the chance to “melt into a school environment” which also allows for a little time away from the truth of what their lives are like at the moment. 

It will be salmon patties for dinner. 

Joy